TNAG-0793-FCO40-997-Refugees-from-Vietnam-in-Hong-Kong-Vietnamese-boat-people-1978 — Page 227

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3.

sribed, are content to turn a blind eye to attempts by ethnic Chinese to leave:

they are less likely to do so for Vietnamese.

betrayal.

5.

There is much scope for deceit and

For those who manage to get away in a boat the chances of survival are

generally considered to be about 50%. The boats are often far too frail for seas

sacountered outside coastal waters. Their engines are sometimes just the small

Japanese diesel engines imported by the thousand into the south in the late 1960s

for the dual purpose of driving sampans and irrigating the fields of peasant farmers.

Very often the boats have insufficient food and water. Sometimes they are

intercepted by the Vietnamese Navy who, according to refugee reports, have opened fire

and sunk such boats, killing and drowning many of the passengers.

7.

Some statistical backing for the 50% chance of survival in a boat escape is

provided by evidence I have obtained in connection with the charter plane-load of

Hong Kong "belongers" we flew out of Ho Chi Minh City on 21 October. In the course

of the many weeks of preparation for this plane, 120 people, who had been granted

entry visas to Hong Kong and who were in the process of being helped through the

complicated exit formalities, disappeared. They probably did so for many and

complicated reasons (eg unwillingness to surrender all their possessions to the

Vietnamese Government, the wish to take with them remote relatives who were

unacceptable to the Hong Kong Government etc). It is reasonable to suppose that

almost all of them chose to leave Vietnam by boat. It is also reasonable to suppose

that all those who succeeded in reaching another country contacted their sponsors in

“Hong Kong. In fact only 40 did so. A few may have reached other countries and not

informed their Hong Kong sponsors, and a few may after some weeks still be en route

to their destinations. But allowing a very generous figure of 20 to cover such

cases, only 60 of the 120 who most probably set off from Vietnam can be reckoned to

be alive. The chances of survival are well known to those who attempt the small boat

route, but in their desperation they still go.

FCO PASS WASHINGTON, SIGNAPORE, KUALA LUMPUR, JAKARTA & UKMIS NEW YORK

MARGATSON

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